


When the Body Speaks

by flowersforgraves



Series: BTHB [12]
Category: The Usual Suspects (1995)
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Canon Compliant, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 17:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16664812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowersforgraves/pseuds/flowersforgraves
Summary: Fenster knows, before it happens, how he's going to die.





	When the Body Speaks

**Author's Note:**

> prompt from a friend: phantom pain + The Usual Suspects
> 
> (card [here](https://flowersforgraves.tumblr.com/post/177921515881/); current list of claimed and filled prompts [here](https://flowersforgraves.tumblr.com/post/180255477591/))

Fenster can feel his back aching, sometimes. He dreams about it, falling backward off some ledge and down onto the rocks below. He can feel it, feel his spine snap and his head impact the rocks, hear the sickening crunch of irreparable damage, taste the bitter tang of blood in his mouth.

Of course that's usually when he wakes up. He sits up in bed, hands clenched in the sheets while he tries to slow his heart rate. Alone in the shitty apartment, he feels weirdly strong and stable, despite the pain still radiating from the back of his head and along his spine.

After the lineup, the dream comes more frequently. He can't remember if there was a night within the past week or two where he hasn't had the dream. Even during the day his back hurts sometimes, a dull throbbing pain of an injury he's never had.

Mac -- McManus -- thinks he's losing it. He thinks Fenster's too stressed, thinks he's drinking too much, thinks he's paranoid about the job. But Mac doesn't know how terrifying this dream is, how real it is. And yeah, maybe Fenster has a reputation for being uptight, maybe he isn't one to wing it the way Mac does, maybe he does have a track record of unnecessary anxiety before a job, but that's different. He doesn't feel like he's being chased, before normal jobs.

Mac laughs at him, when he flops on the shitty hotel room bed and demands a back rub. But he does it anyway, hands warm even through Fenster's shirt, and the familiar cadence of the bastard's complaining does wonders to soothe the tightness in his chest. 

Hallucinatory pains maybe means it's time to take a break. He brings it up casually to Mac right after they take out Saul Berg. He's expecting Mac to laugh, but he just nods and says _yeah, maybe you're right._ That almost worries Fenster more, that Mac's actually worried about him, because he never worries about anyone but himself.

They're sitting on the couches and chairs, all five of them, and Fenster watches Hockney stand up and start pacing. He sees the lawyer before anyone else, taps Mac on the shoulder, and lets Hockney run his mouth before the lawyer speaks. Introduces himself as Kobayashi, and as soon as he says _Keyser Soze_ the pain hits Fenster hard, worse than it's ever been before. Mac catches the sharp intake of breath, and Fenster squeezes his partner's shoulder, _it's alright, but I gotta talk to you later._

Except there isn't a later. There isn't a later because Fenster finds himself tipsy and warm, and getting back into the hotel room is a challenge, until someone hits him over the head. Then there's nothing, nothing until he's soaked in ice water, and someone punches him hard enough to break his nose. After that he blacks out again, and the next time he's conscious he's blindfolded and manhandled down a corridor.

The ocean is a lovely sound, but when they take off the blindfold and let him see where he is, he starts laughing.

He's still laughing when they push him backward off the ledge, still laughing when his spine snaps, still laughing when his head impacts the rock, and he doesn't know anything else ever again.


End file.
